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Re: Nuclear Trouble Intensifies in Japan and USA

here's my view on Nuclear Power:

yes, nuclear plants give off no conventional pollution, but they can (and WILL - MURPHY'S LAW - as seen by cheronoble, 3 mile island, and now fukishima. we also see what radiation did via Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and our nuclear tests in SW U.S. and the Bikini Atolls, where ever they are located - I have no idea - well I guess the Pacific Ocean but where though, lol) give off radiative pollution (radiative leak or meltdown), as well as producing it's radioactive waste.

BUT...

at least conventional pollution can be cleaned up/removed/undone/reversible...

radiation can't be, we have no means of getting rid of radiation, nor its waste, except launching it into space, and pray that no accidents occur before it exits the earth's atmosphere

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so, I'd take a coal/oil plant anyday over a nuclear plant, because at least we can deal with the conventional pollution of coal/oil, whereas we can't with radiation.

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also, coal and oil 's conventional pollution is "native" to planet earth, as coal and oil are fossil fuels, dead plant/animal matter, which can be ignited as there is lightning to produce fire, whereas radiation is not, well... for the last ~2.4 billion years of life on the earth, or whenever the ozone was formed whatever, lol, anyways. hehe.

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personally, I don't understand why we don't fill deserts with solar plants, fill the oceans and hills/mountains with wind turbines, fill whatever rivers we can with hydro plants, fill all geysers with geothermal, and etc...

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a radiated zone is permanently ruined forever, a conventionally polluted zone can be fixed/cleaned up/reversed.

Last edited by HegemonKhan; June 30, 2011 at 09:25 AM.

"The internet’s perfect for all manner of things, but productive discussion ain’t one of them. It provides scant room for debate and infinite opportunities for fruitless point-scoring: the heady combination of perceived anonymity, gestated responses, random heckling and a notional “live audience” quickly conspire to create a “perfect storm” of perpetual bickering." - Charlie Brooker

"I hold the wolf by the ears, I am in a dangerous situation and dare not let go" -an old saying in Latin

Re: Nuclear Trouble Intensifies in Japan and USA

Actually no, we can't deal with "conventional pollution" of coal plants, otherwise we wouldn't have the issues of global climate change (since that would mean we could control carbon dioxide emission).

I think conventional energy just can't be used any more, we've gone too far. We need a diverse energy economy, including wind, solar and nuclear. Most of the problems with the current nuclear situations are because they haven't been replaced and developed (e.g. Fukushima has been in use since the late '60s). These can be avoided by investing in nuclear safety instead of rejecting it and letting the nuclear industry continue to be unregulated.

Re: Nuclear Trouble Intensifies in Japan and USA

I'm dissapointed again in our system of regulations and the people running it giving in an essence a free back rub, instead of enforcing the rules. Our regulatory services need a serious over hall. Perhaps its naivety to believe that corruption is not in every part of governing systems.

I think that report said something about 75 percent pf Nuclear facilities in the U.S. had some kind of issues (or was that leaking radiation ).
Several have been flodded as well. The apparent lackluster care of these highly sensitive facilitates annoys me, especially in the wake of the Japan quakes and proper management failures (prior to the quake) there.

Its also un-heartening to hear about that manager committing suicide over the other plant.

Re: Nuclear Trouble Intensifies in Japan and USA

In Germany, the so far very pro nuclear power party CDU (conservatives, currently government with the economic liberals) agreed to nuclear phase out very soon after Fukushima.

A few years ago, the social democrats + green party already agreed to nuclear phase out, but then the conservatives were elected and prolonged the remaining term on nuclear power plants by many years. Now, after Fukushima, that was taken back by them, as they said that they now evaluate the risks higher than they previously did (in other words, they say the others were always right - just without saying that bluntly )

On 6th of Juny, the government ultimately agreed that some older reactors are stopped immediately, and the others will be stopped step by step until 2022.

The government already had made high taxes on nuclear fuel rods, this means that this course is extra-expensive now as that income will be diminished. However, it seems that most forecasts say that our energy companies will suffer losses on short, but gain very high rewards from this on long term, because green energy is greatly benefited by the government and is less expensive to produce on long term.It's quite obvious, no fuel needed for solar/wind energy, only an initial investment and maintenance.

Re: Nuclear Trouble Intensifies in Japan and USA

Originally Posted by earthforge

Actually no, we can't deal with "conventional pollution" of coal plants, otherwise we wouldn't have the issues of global climate change (since that would mean we could control carbon dioxide emission).

I think you mean we don't, though I'd argue that we certainly can/could... we just don't...

just as one of the very best (temporary) solutions is CONSERVATION (and putting solar panels on every building and whatever else can be done), which we just don't do as well. Human's are excessive virii using up all the resources of one area and then moving onto a new area doing the same.

with how our behavior is so viral/parasitic, our only hope is to be able to colonize mars before we die with our earth that we're destroying.

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Plant/flora life: "Ahem, we flora/plants breath that CO2, removing it from the atmosphere, and give you animals, including humans, your O2 to breath! Frankly, we love reversing/removing your poluting COs emissions, fresh CO2 air for us to breath, [plant/flora takes a deep breath] aaahhh, hehe."

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also, humans *do* actually have the ability to terraform a planet (our own or mars) from CO2 to O2 and from O2 to CO2.

and we do have the ability to and can clean up/break down/separate the CO2, methane (forgot what it's forumla is, meh. It's a CHO though - well I think - meh - maybe I'm wrong - it's been so long since I took chemstry, lol), other hydro-carbons (CHO's), whatever else, that is our conventional pollution, it's basic chemistry, chemical reactions...

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In SimCity games, nuclear power plants are great because there's an option to turn off disasters (which includes the "nuclear meltdown" disaster), we need this same option for our real world nuclear power plants

where's the fusion power plants being researched and developed... lol

or maybe it's now anti-matter plants, meh... which will come first... anti-matter "warp drive" power plants or fusion power plants... or if ever for either of them, lol.

Last edited by HegemonKhan; June 30, 2011 at 09:32 AM.

"The internet’s perfect for all manner of things, but productive discussion ain’t one of them. It provides scant room for debate and infinite opportunities for fruitless point-scoring: the heady combination of perceived anonymity, gestated responses, random heckling and a notional “live audience” quickly conspire to create a “perfect storm” of perpetual bickering." - Charlie Brooker

"I hold the wolf by the ears, I am in a dangerous situation and dare not let go" -an old saying in Latin

Re: Nuclear Trouble Intensifies in Japan and USA

Methane is CH4. Other hydrocarbons are not so much of a problem.

The problem that exists are the pure amounts of such gases. Imagine the world before we destroyed so many forests, there was still enough CO2 for all the plants. Ever since, more and more area has become used with smaller, agricultural plants or just concreted, while we are now emitting much more CO2 than some dinosaurs could have done, no matter how big they were.

You have very high expectancies in terraforming there. Mars does not even have an atmosphere that could hold gases and yet you are speaking of us beeing able to terraform it. Also we have much less of a possibility of making chemical reactions for an atmosphere there. Stuff like H2O or O2 or N2 are not made so easily just like that, it costs a lot of energy and the ressources to create such in bigger amounts. Dunno how many millenia we would have to send buttloads of spaceships to mars to bring that much stuff up there.

Well, to earthly manners: Molecules like CH4 and CO2 are not so easy to re-shape, because they are very stable (Methane can actually be used by burning it... to CO2 and Water. Not a bad thing though, Methane is more dangerous to climate by absorbing more energy.) CO2 is the result of carbon materials burning very often, this tells a lot about stability, because energy is emitted (exothermic reaction) when molecules re-form into a less energetic (that always means "more stable") form.
To reverse that, a lot of energy is required. Usng energy to make other molecules out of CO2 would be kinda stupid right now, since most of our energy sources are emitting CO2.

In short, we are in a pinch between climate change and nuclear threat. Only massive investments into green energy can get us out of there in reasonable time. For Germany, 30% eco friendly of total energy until 2020 and 50% until 2050 are planned.

and yep, more energy = more excited particles = less stable (loss of electrons/ionized or as plasma)

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well, I heard that technologically, we actually have ability to terraform and even colonize mars, albiet in terms of actual practice, it's not doable yet.

Last edited by HegemonKhan; June 30, 2011 at 09:54 AM.

"The internet’s perfect for all manner of things, but productive discussion ain’t one of them. It provides scant room for debate and infinite opportunities for fruitless point-scoring: the heady combination of perceived anonymity, gestated responses, random heckling and a notional “live audience” quickly conspire to create a “perfect storm” of perpetual bickering." - Charlie Brooker

"I hold the wolf by the ears, I am in a dangerous situation and dare not let go" -an old saying in Latin

Re: Nuclear Trouble Intensifies in Japan and USA

it was by scientists, who know what they're talking about. they're obviously ignoring the years/time it would take and such other practical difficulties, but technologically they say we have the capability to terraform and even colonize mars.

just going by my weak memory:

we can send robots to mars to get the foundation, build the domes, make the water and atmosphere, plants/climate, and such stuff, for the humans.

we know how to make CO2, as can be seen by our polluting of our earth with it, we do this "CO2 terraforming" very well already, lol.

and we can remove the CO2 with earth plant/flora organisms, so we can terraform mars.

humans would take however long to get to mars (forgot how many light years mars is from earth)

and whatever else... needs to be done... obviously extremely dangerous/low chance of success, but it's "possible" technologically, according to the source(s) I heard/got this from anyways, some educational science show, with nasa scientists and such, so it's authentic and should be correct.

and I forgot that Obama said that our new space exploration goal, is going to mars, lol

Last edited by HegemonKhan; June 30, 2011 at 10:17 AM.

"The internet’s perfect for all manner of things, but productive discussion ain’t one of them. It provides scant room for debate and infinite opportunities for fruitless point-scoring: the heady combination of perceived anonymity, gestated responses, random heckling and a notional “live audience” quickly conspire to create a “perfect storm” of perpetual bickering." - Charlie Brooker

"I hold the wolf by the ears, I am in a dangerous situation and dare not let go" -an old saying in Latin

Re: Nuclear Trouble Intensifies in Japan and USA

I don't think mars will ever be liveable in the same way as earth.... The main issue with mars currently is that its core is not spinning. As a result mars does not have the protective magnetic field which earth does have and protects the planet from harmful radiation. Mars was smaller than earth and as a result it's core ran out of juice a long time before earth will (we still got a couple billion years from what I understand). Mars is probably what earth will look like a couple billion years from now when the earth's core runs out of spinning juice. As far as terraforming goes..... well, there is the practical issue that it would require more resources than what the earth has.... even then, mars has remarkably powerful earthquakes and storms. Just add it the radiation which will mercilessly shine upon the planet and we got quite the issue, the planet would have to be covered with domes and whatnot. At least that is what I know about that particular topic.

As far as using nuclear power goes, I think people overreacted over the whole fukushima business. First of all, radiation is an issue only if it leaks. The fukushima plants were remarkably old and substandard from what I understand and a big part of the issue was that they could not properly remove the rods which made the energy (excuse me from the technicallities, thats kinda beyond the point). We shouldn't see the fukushima incidents as some sort of bad karma or god's wrath and a warning to stop using nuclear energy altogether but rather as guidelines for future security measures to take for future power plants. Basically build nuclear power plants so that you can turn them off (DUH!) and that they can take a powerful earthquake and a tsunami (which should be doable with today's technology) and account for other potential disasters.

Human population is currently nearing 7 billion from what I understand. Out of those more than half live is quite a bit of poverty and use little energy. In principle what we are currently working for (I did say principle, not practice, I don't want to get into that) so that more and more people don't have to live in such poverty. In that regard, our energy requirements are ideally going to increase more than dramatically. To boot, it has been speculated that human population is going to peak at 11 billion which needlessly to say is almost twice the current population. At the current time the many of the ecological issues can be solved rather simply.... moderation. Basically moderation on our part, saving energy and reducing waste (which is not in essense a dificult thing) could greatly solve most of the ecological issues. But would that remain the case once the 3 billion people who have little energy requirements due to poverty get out of said poverty? And what about when the population reaches 11 billion and they too need energy too?

Taking that into consideration, can we afford to not use nuclear energy? Conventional energy sources are clearly not clean enough and most likely won't suffice for whats comming. Nuclear energy in turn is abundant and comparatively clean. Today's technology should already allow for safe nuclear plants that could ideally take on an earthquake, a tsunami and god knows what other natural disasters.... add in even more technological advancements and you got something which is altogether quite reliable. Obviously nuclear wastes are far more directly damaging that waste from conventiona energy sources but in turn they won't necessarily be thrown into the enviroment. It can be stored and controlled with the proper measures.

Re: Nuclear Trouble Intensifies in Japan and USA

Originally Posted by earthforge

Actually no, we can't deal with "conventional pollution" of coal plants, otherwise we wouldn't have the issues of global climate change (since that would mean we could control carbon dioxide emission).

I think conventional energy just can't be used any more, we've gone too far. We need a diverse energy economy, including wind, solar and nuclear. Most of the problems with the current nuclear situations are because they haven't been replaced and developed (e.g. Fukushima has been in use since the late '60s). These can be avoided by investing in nuclear safety instead of rejecting it and letting the nuclear industry continue to be unregulated.

The problem with wanting or having diverse energy economy is that majority of the company and government aren't as likely to spend money on it. Companies are even less likely to spend money on becoming solar-powered and wind-powered rather than electricity, coal, and etc because it costs money, it reduces their profits. For the government, I'm not sure, but USA is in about $13 trillion debt, fighting a war. Government won't want to spend money on something that's not broken enough. The willingness to spend money on changing method of getting energy is the problem as most aren't willing.

Re: Nuclear Trouble Intensifies in Japan and USA

I agree mostly with kkck, to the degree that we're overreacting over Fukushima as if it's a Godsent message to stop with nuclear, but disagree on that it's more abundant and clean. We actually don't have those resources, mainly because of the polarization of opinion on nuclear power.

I think we need to do a lot more study in making nuclear safer, just like coal plants started out far more dirty than they've become now. We're overreacting and not looking at the problem - old infrastructure and bad management decisions (Tepco wanted to extend the lifetime of the Fukushima plant ironically despite it failing safety checks).

We need significant government oversight on nuclear plants and a very rigid system to avoid situations like this in the future.

Re: Nuclear Trouble Intensifies in Japan and USA

Well, at least from what I understand the materials needed for nuclear fission are actually indeed abundant and a small amount of them is needed. I don't have the numbers with me but from what I do recall the amount of material on earth is not much of an issue currently.

I do kinda dislike the ideal of filling the world with energy mills and solar pannels. Both are rather innefficient from what I understand, would require large amounts of space and don't have high outputs. I also do think there is something inherently unwise about depending on how windy or sunny the day turned out to be to get energy.... I guess a mixed energy system would kinda work itself around it but I would rather rely on nuclear energy which is localized in one place, is far more predictable and is actually extremely efficient. I honestly have yet to hear anything from non hippies which suggests there is any real merit to green energy sources for the most part.

Re: Nuclear Trouble Intensifies in Japan and USA

Again is the problem of Murphy's Law. a nuclear plant is completely fine.... until something goes wrong... and something WILL go wrong... and HAS ALREADY GONE WRONG: cheranoble, 3 mile island, fukishima.

I do not like nuclear plants... it's no different than an nuclear bomb... who wants to be near a nuclear bomb... ???

the wind picks up, and blows some dirt grains into it, it explodes destroying everything around it permanently for its uber long half-life of radiation... NOOOOOO THANKS !!! Coal and Oil plants are much SAFER/LESS HARMFUL, they don't do permanent irreversable damage to the area and the planet !!!!!!

(I know a nuclear bomb can't be set off so easily, lol. it was jsut for my argument-point-example sake)

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at some point, there is this consideration:

there's too many people...

can you forever fill a confined space up with more and more people, giving them all water, food, energy, money, work, fun, etc....

can you keep increasing the population of lions and expect the balance of life to continue? how do those lions feed themselves? eat the gazelles off... but what... god comes along and magically brings the eaten off gazelles back to life, god makes the earth bigger, how do we sustain more and more and more poeple? create dimensional travel so that 100 people can occupy the same space on the earth (each in their own dimension) ???

how about just seriously considering what to do, if the current population lives to 150. how in the world would we deal with 6-7 billion people living to 150 years old ????

and if that makes sense... now ask yourself how do we deal with 10 billion (or however many) people ???

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at some point, we are going to have more humans than is possible of sustaining, and nature will take care of this, but it certainly won't be pretty. the laws of nature and the universe can't be broken, if there's too many humans, nature/universe will correct it (kill off people until its back to a sustainable amount).

but people like to ignore this reality and try to deal with more people, even though we already fail:

how many poor people do we have? how many people have we already failed to sustain with decent lives?

and we're only at 6-7 billion population, imagine when its 10 billion, how many poor people will we now have? how much more broke of money, space, food, water, oil, and etc will we be ???

Last edited by HegemonKhan; July 01, 2011 at 05:23 PM.

"The internet’s perfect for all manner of things, but productive discussion ain’t one of them. It provides scant room for debate and infinite opportunities for fruitless point-scoring: the heady combination of perceived anonymity, gestated responses, random heckling and a notional “live audience” quickly conspire to create a “perfect storm” of perpetual bickering." - Charlie Brooker

"I hold the wolf by the ears, I am in a dangerous situation and dare not let go" -an old saying in Latin